Careless Iqaluit drivers threaten child safety: resident

Failing to fully stop at a stop sign is against the law — and jeopardizes the safety of pedestrians, especially children, says Iqaluit resident Steven Lonsdale. (PHOTO BY STEVE DUCHARME)

At least twice a day Steven Lonsdale will look out his window to see a car sail through the four-way intersection beside his family’s home in Iqaluit’s Plateau subdivision.

“On a daily basis I see vehicles either rolling through, not stopping, or just blowing through without any hesitation,” Lonsdale said.

And he worries that some day, one of those cars will catch his children crossing the street.

“I genuinely fear for the safety of my kids. My son, he just started middle school and his bus stop is just a few metres away from that four-way,” Lonsdale said.

“When you cross the street, don’t assume that they’re going to stop,” he reminds his son on his way to school.

It’s an often-praised convenience of living in Nunavut’s capital: no traffic jams to speak of; very little commute time; and no pesky traffic lights. Instead, stop signs police the careening roads of Iqaluit.

But what began as a bad habit for Iqalungmiut, say city officials, has led to systemic disregard for the rules of the road.

“We can send out PSAs about safe driving, we do it every year,” said chief municipal enforcement officer Kevin Sloboda.

“For the most part, its up to the individual to come to a complete stop. These rolling stops, people do them, and it happens. It just becomes a driving practice over time. It’s a learned behavior.”

The many trouble spots force by-law officers to pick and choose their stakeouts. Their presence in an area often controls the behaviour of motorists.

But naturally, traffic offences often happen where no one’s watching.

Since reporting that troublesome intersection in the Plateau to the city, Lonsdale says he’s seen an increase in patrols and ticketing. He credits bylaw for responding to his complaints.

But the problem persists.

“It just seems to be that when the presence is there a lot of the cars know that a bylaw car is parked there so they do the full stop and keep going. But as soon as that car is gone they go back to that routine of blowing past the stop signs,” Lonsdale said.

Lonsdale and his wife have been collecting the plate numbers of offending drivers and submitting them to city enforcement officers — but they would have to testify in court if they wanted the charges to stick.

“If that’s the way to stop the drivers, I’ll do it. It’s for my kids,” said Lonsdale, who admits it’s difficult to catch plate numbers on fast-moving cars.

At a city council meeting in June, bylaw officers presented their annual report on traffic violations for 2014.

According to those statistics, the enforcement office issued 25 tickets for failing to obey traffic devices and 249 tickets for speeding.

And if the second half of 2015 is anything like the first half, the number of tickets related to stop sign infractions could be double from the previous year, if not more.

“As of July, we had written 148 speeding tickets and 23 failed-to-stops, over the course of the year so far,” Sloboda said.

The Iqaluit District Education Authority is concerned that several of Iqaluit’s busier intersections are located close to schools.

“Most of our schools are located near four-way stops, so we definitely like to encourage drivers of the community to be mindful, especially because children can be crossing at those four-way stops,” IDEA chairperson Gwen Healey said.

The Government of Nunavut recently partnered with the Iqaluit DEA on a risk assessment for two Iqaluit schools and the location of bus pickup zones.

“We’ve moved the location of the loading area for the buses of Nakasuk School to another side of the school to reduce opportunities for kids to cross paths with traffic,” Healey said.

But Lonsdale worries that most of what the city is doing right now, to address stop-sign roll-throughs, is reactionary rather than preventative.

“Usually these safety measures are done after the fact of an incident so I’m hoping something can be done before an incident occurs, before a kid gets hurt or killed by a reckless driver,” he said.

“Beyond calling bylaw and posting on Facebook for feedback — beyond that I don’t really know what to do.”